They are horse breeders, farmers, mountain hunters. The kumandins, speaking the Turkic language of the Uighur group, live in the Northern Altai, in the southern part of the Kuznetsk Alatau mountains and along the rivers flowing down from the Biysk Mane ridge. The Kumandins as a people are poorly studied.

The research have revealed the presence of cultural layers that bring the Kumandins closer to the Ugrians, Selkups, Finns of the Volga region, as well as with the Scythian-Sarmatians and even Tibetans.

A characteristic feature of the traditional costume of the Kumandins - widespread use of homespun hemp canvas, clothing decoration with complex, semantically significant embroidered patterns. According to the cut, the clothes of the Kumandins are closest to the Selkup.